Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews: Ugly Sisters | Eleanor | Yes, We’re Related

This fresh round of Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews uncovers fearless feminist pieces, empowering stories of women, and impressive debuts.

Ugly Sisters at the Edinburgh Fringe | Clémence Rebourg

Ugly Sisters 

Underbelly, Cowgate (Venue 61), until 25 August

★★★★

piss / CARNATION achieve the sense of dialogue that is woefully absent from their source material - Germaine Greer’s 1989 article, On Why Sex Change Is A Lie. In Ugly Sisters, a fearless piece that stages the accidental death of the pioneering second-wave feminist and public intellectual, the company offers a metathetical commentary on intersectional feminism and uses the resurrection of Greer’s mortal body (and her undying ideas) to address the challenges of identifying as a feminist today.

Bedecked in ballgowns, a set of oversized lips, and hair extensions, performers Charli Cowgill and Laurie Ward embrace ‘ugliness’ for its radical potential, and use elements of costume to question standards of female beauty that are embedded in and embodied by contemporary society.

Together, they observe womanhood through the lens of experience philosophy. As something felt. Chosen. A continual act of transformation that cannot be contained by any one dimension or definition.

Be it a funeral rite or the right to self-expression, Ugly Sisters is inclusive in its approach, and the audience are involved in the action throughout. In this space, we are all Greer, and we are theatre-makers and change-makers alike - part of the company, the conversation. The solution.

Cowgill and Ward lip sync to excerpts of media interviews with Greer, and use sections of choreography to travel between scenes recounting the day that witnessed the release of The Female Eunuch in America. 

It is exhilarating, scintillating. In making themselves immensely vulnerable, the pair empower themselves immeasurably, as they explore the female body as an object of sexual and political agency. And while the title calls to mind the ugly sisters of the fairy tale tradition, it also conjures the image of Cinderella’s slipper. Which is to say - though the ways of a bigot may be fixed, like glass, bigotry is not beyond breaking.

Josephine Balfour-Oatts

Eleanor

TheSpace@Niddry St (Venue 9), until 17 August

★★★★

Young Edinburgh-based Ganymede Theatre Company sets out to tell the story of the youngest daughter of Karl Marx in this play, not her achievements, the prologue explains, because these are already known, but the lesser known story of her personal life. In a way, that’s too bad, because whatever she achieved, Eleanor Marx’ personal story was a tragedy.

As the play opens, we meet Eleanor and friends as teenagers, moving the table at which Marx wrote Das Capital so they can act out the plays of Shakespeare, brimming with fun and vitality, and Eleanor most of all. This was her modus operandi - clever, passionate, sardonic - but as her friends marry off, she falls in love with Edward Aveling, a married philanderer.

Agnes Perry-Robinson’s well-written play is brought to life by a strong ensemble cast, led by the wonderful Arlene McKay as Eleanor. Quickly, its direction takes on a certain inevitability. For all her talent and passion, the course of Eleanor’s life is determined by the actions of a moody, manipulative man who lashes out at her, alienates her friends in the Socialist League and steals her fortune.

Her achievements are mentioned in passing but without context, the publication of The Woman Question, which she wrote with Aveling, the 30,000-strong demonstration she helped to organise. Being a Marx is a double-edged sword: Eleanor feels is being “strangled by the branches of my own family tree”; Aveling is jealous of her fame.

As he becomes increasingly cruel, she is pitched towards despair. It’s too bad that, in a time when significant women are being recovered from the margins of history, there are too many stories like this: of brilliant, vivacious women destroyed by the behaviour of men.

Susan Mansfield

Yes, We’re Related

Greenside @ Riddles Court (Venue 16), until 17 August

★★★

It’s been a year since sisters Sara and Saskia lost their mother, and in the intervening time they’ve also lost touch with one another. Yet Saskia has decided that a year has been long enough, and she turns up at her mother’s old flat with her boyfriend Mark to hold a pre-arranged party to commemorate the anniversary.

Things have changed, though; Sara has been staying in a tent on the flat’s living room floor, with only a red squirrel – which she believes is some kind of reincarnation of her mother – locked in the bedroom for company.

Meanwhile, Saskia is splitting up with her boyfriend Mark, and she’s concerned how Sara will take it after Mark helped support the family through their bereavement. There are reckonings to be had with one another all round, although the battles aren’t really between these troubled individuals, but with their own unresolved grief and guilt.

Playwright Florence Lace-Evans acts in her own well-characterised work as Sara, who’s more together and mentally-focused than her behaviour suggests, while Eleanor Griffiths is the genteel, hors d’oeuvre-loving Saskia and Jack Huckin brings the archery-obsessed Mark a lunk-headed charm. The themes of the piece are worked through in a conventional manner, but the explosive use of trifle and powdered ash give it a sense of messy jeopardy.

David Pollock

Flat 2

theSpace on the Mile (Venue 39), until 17 August

★★★

A stolen chicken shop doormat leads to an unexpected tragedy in Lucy Foley’s debut play. This exploration of grief centres on two young widows and flatmates, Ava (Lucy Foley) and Freddie (Tom Ashen), who, in their search for comfort, unexpectedly find it in each other.  The piece succinctly captures the chaos, shock and pain of mourning without overplaying it, accurately reflecting the complexities that come with the death of a loved one.

Although the piece is centred around a surreal situation, the emotions are genuine and there is truth in the way it explores the contrasts that exist between personal emotions and societal expectations.

Naturally, the piece is quite heavy, but Foley’s thoughtful writing balances mourning with comedy, especially through Freddie’s character, who works as a children’s party entertainer and wears ridiculous costumes. The script and Natalie Evans' direction combine to handle grief in a way that reminds us that there's no correct way to handle loss.

The passage of time is effectively depicted through music and fast snap-shot-like scenes, adding energy to the piece and giving contrast to the slower, more intense moments.

Both Ava and Freddie are flawed characters but are extremely likeable, and it is impossible not to root for them as they try to navigate and rebuild their lives.

Suzanne O’Brien

Girlhood

Greenside @ Riddles Court (Venue 16), until 17 August

 ★★

This relationship comedy set over three New Year's Eves starts off well with some sharp and funny dialogue, as three couples of varying kinds make out, make up, or make friends. It’s an imaginative idea well performed by the cast, but as the conversations dissolve into discussions about the characters’ differing attitudes to having a baby, the sparkle starts to wear off.

As one relationship starts, another ends and the inward-looking questions that the end of the year encourages are woven together into an earnest but ever-slowing analysis of women’s choices. A more consistent tone would help keep the conversation flowing.   

Sally Stott

Out Of Woodstock

Underbelly, Cowgate (Venue 61), until 25 August

 ★★ 

Wristbands at the ready for entry to the Woodstock festival – not the peace, love and don’t-touch-the-brown-acid original but the disastrous 1999 anniversary edition where fans were fleeced, rabbles were roused, girls were groped and the whole travesty literally went up in smoke.

Protagonist Guy (Max Beken) is pitched into this powder keg following the break-up of a relationship, with other characters portrayed in voiceover mixed with audio from the actual festival. Yet the play is curiously lacking in atmosphere despite the unfolding drama. A closing audio montage drives home the message that appalling misogyny among angry young men prevails in the time of Trump in a way that the script and performance can’t seem to draw out.

Fiona Shepherd